Slideshow: GM Debuts Pure-Electric Spark

General Motors rolled out the battery-powered Spark EV on Wednesday, marking the first time it has introduced an all-electric car since it scrapped the infamous EV1 a decade ago.

The $25,000 mini-car-sized Spark EV will be targeted at US and Asian buyers and is expected to help GM meet California's Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate. It also reinforces a commitment to plug-in cars that GM has repeated over the last several years.

"We're taking what we've learned in the EV1 and the Volt and using it in the Spark," GM spokeswoman Annalisa Bluhm told Design News prior to the rollout at the Los Angeles Auto Show. Bluhm added that 40 percent of the components in the Spark's motor are used in the Volt motor and much of the Spark's battery technology builds on lessons learned from the EV1 and Volt.

The new five-door electric car will employ a 20-kWh lithium-ion battery from A123 Systems Inc. that will give the Spark "one of the best EV battery ranges in its segment," GM said. With its 130-hp permanent magnet motor, it will go from zero-to-60-mph in eight seconds and will be the first vehicle to employ the new DC fast-charging standard from the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), which will enable it to reach an 80 percent battery charge in 20 minutes at public charging stations. Using a dedicated 240V home outlet, it will charge in seven hours.

Inside, the vehicle will employ two high-resolution, seven-inch, color LCD screens; a MyLink radio for infotainment; and apps for navigation and global Internet radio.

The vehicle's 20-kWh battery is slightly larger than the Chevy Volt's 16-kWh battery and smaller than the Nissan Leaf's 24-kWh version. GM did not reveal the car's all-electric range, saying that it is awaiting EPA estimates.

The use of the A123 nanophosphate battery came as a surprise to some, given the fact that A123 filed for bankruptcy in October. GM had said in 2011, however, that it planned to employ an A123 lithium-ion battery. "The bankruptcy proceedings have no effect on the development of the battery," Bluhm told us.

Since announcing the Chevy Spark in late 2011, GM has said the vehicle will be partially targeted toward buyers in Asia, where smaller vehicles are more accepted. "When you get into the mega-cities and the shorter driving commutes that they have in those regions, the Spark EV might be a better fit than a vehicle like the Volt," a GM spokesman told Design News in 2011.

Industry analysts believe GM's introduction of the Spark EV is also an effort to comply with California's looming ZEV mandate. "There's an argument that they're selling them in markets outside California, so it's supposedly not just a compliance issue," Kevin See, an analyst for Lux Research, told Design News. "But the ZEV mandate really is the primary reason for rolling it out. Obviously, that's why it's coming out in California first."

The rollout comes at a time when battery-electric vehicles are still struggling. A study by J.D. Power released in November contended that American consumers still have little interest in EVs, and will continue to be uninterested for some time to come. Nissan sold just 6,791 Leafs through October, according to caranddriver.com.

See believes that the low sales figures will continue with the Spark. "My response is a shrug of the shoulders," See told us. "They're not going to sell a ton of Spark EVs."

Your calculations sound right, but I doubt if that charging option will be available from a 110V outlet. In a home-usage scenario, you'd probably charge it up over a couple hours or so, from a 220V outlet. That's fine for me though, since I drive more than 50 miles per day ... maybe once every couple weeks or so.

It would be very cool to see charging stations, such as at large truck stops on Interstates and other large freeways. The Spark may be able to go from Austin to Houston or back with only one 20min stop. I'm guessing that it's more likely to have an 80-90 mile real-world range (air conditioner or heater on), which would require two stops on the way.

One 20-minute break wouldn't be much of a problem (if not desirable) but two might be a little annoying. Then again, I only take that sort of trip two or three times a year, so I might just rent a car instead.

Did I see a hint of Ayn Rand a the end of the article? Manufacturing because the government said so?

EV's will only sell when there range is comparable to fueled vehicles, recharge quickly, and priced equally (without subsidies). Not sure if the physics works out for the first two items as the definition of quickly recharging has to be the same as refueling. No one likes to stand around for 20 minutes to recharge. Though I suspect this would be a marketing boom to convience stores!

You are absolutely correct that fast charging would not be from a residential 110 volt outlet. But 220 volts gets the current down to 218 amps! Most residences are serviced from 440 volt lines which gets it down to 109 amps.

Even allowing 2 hours gets it down to only 36.3 amps on a 220 volt line. No residence has that kind of wiring either.

My point is that the article is misleading when it makes that claim. So, what else is misleading or just plain false?

Charging stations are fine but will have to charge (oh bad choice of words) for the electricity. In my state, 10kwH costs $1.90 at retail rates. What would the owner of a charging station have to charge to get a reasonable return on his investment?

'Normal' charge for a home charger would almost certainly be at 220V. I have no actual info on their plan, but I'd bet that the 20 minute variety is done on 480V 3 phase (277V from each 'hot' to ground), which would drop the current demand to under 60 amps per leg. 480 V 3 phase is available in most large buildings.

JayBee: Thank you to readers such as yourself who said the vehicle can't be charged in 20 minutes from a home outlet. You are absolutely correct. Our earlier story about the SAE fast-charge standard explained that SAE fast-charging is for public charging stations. Click the link to the earlier story to learn more. In the meantime, we are adding a sentence in this story to explain that the battery can be charged from a 240V home outlet in seven hours. My apologies for the omission and thanks again for your comments.

The article says that the Spark supports a 20-minute 80% charging cycle. That doesn't imply that homes can support it.

I'd expect that 99.5% of the time you'd charge it overnight at home, but three or four times per year, you'd need that fast charging cycle, and it will be very desirable to have. Assuming that somebody buys, literally and figuratively, the premise of such a vehicle, then I bet such customers would be willing to pay for that charging cycle on the few rare occasions its needed.

I perceive this car to be optimized for normal day-to-day driving within the range of a typical metropolitan area and its suburbs. Anything else will require rare and somewhat-extreme measures, which is what I perceive this 20-minute charging cycle to be.

I can imagine this sort of vehicle being my family's primary vehicle, but where we also have a cheap, reliable, old Toyota Corolla, say. I drive the Spark frequently, my wife occasionally drives the Corolla while I'm out at work (she doesn't work outside the house), and we, two or three times per year, hop into to take long road trips. In other words, 80-90% of the driving would be in a Spark or Leaf, but we still have a ho-hum gasoline car for comparatively rare cases when we need to drive to different at the same time, or need to take long road trips. I expect that's the sort of use case GM, Nissan and others have in mind for this sort of vehicle.

If we take the battery capacity, 20kWH, and divide that by 746 watts per horsepower we get a potential battery capacity of putting out only 26.8 horsepower for 1 hour. That is pitiful compared to a gasoline or diesel fueled engine. Then turn on an air conditioner and the range drops even further. I don't think GM will sell many of these turkeys in Southern Arizona.

With the Oldsmobile now defunct maybe GM should call its Spark the "Obamamobile."

Once you get a car moving at a consistent speed, you don't need very much horsepower, especially if it has a low drag coefficient, and this looks like it probably does. Regenerative braking helps a lot with stop&go traffic. More fundamentally though, this sort of car you do the equivalent of going to the gas station every night, at home (takes 5-10 seconds to plug or unplug it). So, it doesn't need much total energy in the battery.

On a straight & level freeway at 65 mph, the battery will last about an hour and a half, assuming a reasonable Cd*A. That's 45 minutes there and 45 minutes back-- not much range at best. Add a few hills (downhill regeneration helps but the efficiency isn't 100%) turn on the heater or A/C and things get worse. Oh, yes-- roll down the windows and the Cd goes up.

Charge the battery back up at work? Where-- I don't see any charging stations there. Even if the employer installed charging stations, a few hundred cars all trying to use the charging stations at the same time would draw an enormous amount of AC power.

Obamamobiles are building on the experiences of the Volt-- what, they catch fire too?

Some cars are more reliable than others, but even the vehicles at the bottom of this year’s Consumer Reports reliability survey are vastly better than those of 20 years ago in the key areas of powertrain and hardware, experts said this week.

As it does every year, Consumers Union recently surveyed its members on the reliability of their vehicles. This year, it collected data on approximately 1.1 million cars and trucks, categorizing the members’ likes and dislikes, not only of their vehicles, but of the vehicle sub-systems, as well.

A few weeks ago, Ford Motor Co. quietly announced that it was rolling out a new wrinkle to the powerful safety feature called stability control, adding even more lifesaving potential to a technology that has already been very successful.

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